Dupage Cop Who Quit Over Cruz Takes Stand

Two weeks after Jeanine Nicarico was killed, the son of the Nicarico family's maid became the No. 1 suspect for a time because he said he had dreamed that the girl's body would be found in a wooded area near a stream.

The disclosure, on March 8, 1983, by John Ruiz, sparked a flurry of activity over the next several days, because Ruiz's description was accurate and because he had the dream a day before the 10-year-old's body was found.

Former DuPage County Sheriff's Detective John Sam testified Wednesday in the trial of seven men accused of framing Rolando Cruz for the slaying, that Ruiz was read his Miranda warning about the right to decline to answer questions, was asked to give blood and hair samples and was given a polygraph exam.

And, Sam said, investigators checked his alibi for Feb. 25, 1983--the date of Jeanine's abduction and slaying--with all of those activities documented in police reports.

Special prosecutors offered Sam's testimony to the jury to highlight the failure of fellow Detectives Dennis Kurzawa and Thomas Vosburgh to write up a report of an alleged statement by Cruz on May 9, 1983, that he had a dream about the crime containing details only the killer would know.

Vosburgh and Kurzawa also did not give Cruz a Miranda warning, never ordered him to provide hair and blood samples and never asked him to take a polygraph test.

The two detectives are among seven defendants on trial and are accused of concocting the dream statement in December 1984 to bolster the prosecution case against Cruz.

They have contended that the lead prosecutor in the case, Thomas Knight, who is also on trial, advised them against writing a report. And they maintain that Knight instructed them to stop talking with Cruz.

Sam, who said he wrote 21 separate police reports detailing his involvement in the investigation, conceded under cross-examination by Terence Gillespie, lawyer for Kurzawa, that he never documented specifically that Ruiz claimed to have had a dream.

Also on trial are sheriff's police Lieutenants James Montesano and Robert Winkler and two other former Cruz prosecutors, Robert Kilander and Patrick King.

Cruz was twice convicted and sentenced to death--in 1985 and 1990--for the crime but was acquitted during his third trial in 1995.

Jeanine Nicarico's death remains unsolved.

In other testimony Wednesday, Sam, who resigned from the Sheriff's Department in late 1984 because he believed the wrong men had been indicted in the case, testified that in 1983 he had a conversation with Cruz and concluded that Cruz was a liar.

Sam testified that he was summoned to work on a Sunday by Knight and at a brief meeting, he spoke with Cruz about a variety of matters, but not the Nicarico investigation. He said he told Knight after the conversation that "Rolando Cruz is full of (expletive)."

Sam was followed on the witness stand by DuPage County Sheriff's Detective Warren Wilkosz, who testified he never heard his colleagues mention Cruz's alleged vision statement.

Under questioning by special prosecutor William Kunkle, Wilkosz said that in 20 years as a detective he had never been asked to refrain from writing a report and that he would have refused such a request.